BRUSSELS (Dispatches) — NATO countries refused on
Friday to police a no-fly zone over Ukraine, warning that such a move could provoke widespread war in Europe with nuclear power Russia, the organization’s top civilian official said.
Speaking after chairing a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his counterparts, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said, “We are not going to move into Ukraine, neither on the ground, nor in the Ukrainian airspace.”
Under a collective security guarantee binding NATO’s 30 member countries — Article 5 of its founding treaty — all allies must come to the defense of an ally if it finds itself under attack. Any shooting down of a NATO warplane by Russia could trigger that clause.
“The only way to implement a no-fly zone is to send NATO fighter planes into Ukrainian airspace, and then impose that no-fly zone by shooting down Russian planes,” Stoltenberg said. He said allies believe that “if we did that, we would end up with something that could end in a full-fledged war in Europe.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has appealed for the West to enforce a no-fly zone over his country, most recently after a fire overnight at one of Ukraine’s nuclear plants, the largest in Europe.
But, Stoltenberg said, “we are not part of this conflict, and we have a responsibility to ensure that it does not escalate and spread beyond Ukraine, because that would be even more devastating and more dangerous.”
NATO members and officials are alarmed at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threat to use nuclear weapons should one of them get involved in the conflict. NATO has no weapons itself, but the United States, Britain and France are nuclear powers, like Russia.
NATO has mobilized thousands of troops backed by aircraft, tanks and heavy equipment and deployed them to countries on its eastern flank near Ukraine and Russia, such as Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania.
At a second round of talks between Ukrainian and Russian delegations Thursday, Putin warned Ukraine that it must quickly accept the Kremlin’s demand for its “demilitarization” and declare itself a neutral country, thereby renouncing any bid to join NATO.
Instead of a military presence in Ukraine, European Union countries - most of them also NATO members - said they were eyeing more economic sanctions to add to coordinated restrictions that have already targeted Russia’s financial system and elites.
EU officials are examining curbs on Russia’s influence and access to finance at the International Monetary Fund following its invasion of Ukraine, Reuters reported.
The bloc’s top diplomat Josep Borrell said that all options remained on the table with regard to new sanctions.
“We will consider everything,” Borrell told reporters when asked about the possible suspension of the EU’s gas imports from Russia, which think-tank Eurointelligence said amount to $700 million daily even during the war.
The White House dismissed the idea of banning Russian oil imports due to the fact that it could further spike the already high price of gas for the American people.
“We don’t have a strategic interest in reducing the global supply of energy,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said. “And that would raise prices at the gas pump for the American people, around the world, because it would reduce the supply available.”
“And it’s as simple as: Less supply raises prices. And that is certainly a big factor for the president in this — at this moment,” she added.
Ireland’s Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said no new sanctions would be announced on Friday but that a fourth round could affect more Russian banks’ access to the SWIFT international transfer system, bar Russian ships from European ports and cut imports like steel, timber, aluminium or coal.
Putin launched his “special military operation” to get rid of what he said was Ukraine’s fascist government and demilitarize the country.
Russian forces seized Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant on Friday in heavy fighting in southeastern Ukraine, triggering global alarm, but a huge blaze in a training building has been extinguished and officials said the facility was now safe.
Hawkish U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham publicly called for “somebody in Russia” to assassinate Putin to put an end to the conflict.
“How does this end? Somebody in Russia has to step up to the plate... and take this guy out,” the senator told conservative Fox News TV host Sean Hannity.
He later repeated the call in a series of tweets, saying, “The only people who can fix this are the Russian people. Easy to say, hard to do.”